


The Grey Muzzle

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: Always Been a Pencil [6]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Child Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, growing older, growing wiser, in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: Every few months, Sandor leaves Winterfell and checks up on the Starks, but every journey comes to an end eventually.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane & Arya Stark, Sandor Clegane & Sansa Stark
Series: Always Been a Pencil [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1337353
Comments: 39
Kudos: 124





	The Grey Muzzle

**Author's Note:**

> Sandor has been in the background for every story in this series and I really wanted to give him his own space to breathe. This story takes place a year after Build a House in the Ruins and roughly twenty years after the main action of What is True, but Not Ideal.

Dr. Brother sat in the shabby wingback chair, an encouraging look on his face. The window over his left shoulder looked out onto a back road to a graveyard beyond. There was a tent propped up over an open grave, but no funeral procession had yet arrived. It wasn’t a view that bothered Sandor, but he wondered if it might get to a normal man. It was an odd choice of an office. 

“I can’t remember my sister’s name.” 

“Your sister?” 

“She died when I was seven or eight,” he blew out a stream of air. “My brother killed her. I don’t remember how or when. Must’ve seen it, but never been able to remember.” 

“How do you know he killed her?” 

Sandor leveled the doctor with a look, “Because I know. It was after what he did to my face. We didn’t have a lot of play nice left in us.” 

“So you were eight or so and she was how old? 

He closed his eyes, pulled up the faded tattered memories, “Four, maybe? I made her breakfast in the mornings after our mother died. Toast, cereal. Whatever there was. She was old enough to hold a spoon and not make a mess.” 

“Why do you think you can’t remember her name?” 

“They told me she didn’t exist,” he said slowly, carefully. Drawing out the memory like a knife out of the wound. Waiting for the blood to follow. “My father and my brother. That I had an imaginary friend. They got rid of her pictures, threw out whatever shit she had which wasn’t much. Erased her.” 

“Did you believe them?” 

“Not for a fucking second,” he usually tried to watch his language around Dr. Brother. It was a trick that had taken him a long time to learn, but the Stark women weren’t much for foul language and he was for the Stark women as it turned out. “I knew what I knew.” 

“But you can’t remember her name.” 

“No,” he admitted. 

“And that bothers you.” 

“Course it does,” he clenched his hands together. “Someone should remember her.” 

“I’m delighted to offer a concrete solution than,” Dr. Brother did actually look happy about it. The prospect of an easy fix didn’t often come up between them. “Clegane might not be one of the great houses, but it’s old enough to be in the Hall of Records in King’s Landing. Her birth would’ve been recorded and kept there, no matter what your family attempted to do.” 

“You...really? Even if no one gave two shits about her?” 

“Someone would’ve. Those records are kept very closely.” 

“Huh.” 

“What made you think of your sister?” 

“Getting ready to do my tour again, ” he leaned back. The tour was quarterly, now that the Stark children were spread across the world. He’d load up his truck and head out to spiral around and check in with each of them. Make pit stops along the way. “Was thinking about family.” 

“Do you think the Starks are family?” It was asked without judgement and Sandor tried not to read any into it. 

“I work for them.” 

“Yes.” 

“I don’t know,” he rested his head against the back of the couch, stared up at the ceiling. It was Catelyn who had suggested this in the first place. Catelyn who had stopped being Mrs. Stark a few years in, as the kids left home one by one and it was just them some mornings at the breakfast table. They were both early risers, zombies shambling to coffee and toast. The first time he’d seen her in her bathrobe and ancient slippers, she’d invited him to use her first name. 

Sometimes she called him Sandy, the way the kids had taken to, offhandedly and it surprised him every time. Not in a bad way. No one in the Stark house ever called him Hound. 

“Don’t even know what it’s meant to look like,” he finally said.

“Something else to think about.” 

The conversation turned to other things. Reminders to regulate his breathing. To hold onto positive thoughts. In the beginning it had all sounded like bullshit, but it had helped, some. He drank less these days, breathed a little easier. His nightmares had lessened. 

When he got back to Winterfell with a promise to call in on their usual session days behind him, Catelyn was wrapping gifts to tuck into his bags. 

“They’re not supposed to know I’m there,” he grumbled as he started packing them into a suitcase. A gift for his birthday three years ago, a heavy tough thing that made him give up his battered duffel bag without protest. He hadn't even blinked on getting it. They'd gotten him used to things like birthday gifts which once had been an obscure practice of distant peoples. 

“Mhm,” Catelyn lay down a sharp crease in heavy gold and black paper. “Remind me of that when Arya calls me again whining that you’ve tracked her down.” 

“She’s different.” 

“Mm.” 

After all, he’d taught the girl half of what she knew about tracking and the other half she’d picked up from spook school. Her official job title had a diplomat in it, but he couldn’t think of a less diplomatic human being. 

“She’s in Blueburn,” he offered into the silence. “You want something from the night markets?” 

Catelyn gave him a list, neatly slanting handwriting on thick paper. They would never ever go so far as to hug each other, but she wished him a good trip and stood on the steps watching him go. 

He put on music. A mix that Sansa had made him, a sort of bridge laid between them in those first few weeks back at Winterfell. It was the music she had so loved to sing once upon a time. Northern folk songs, fairy tale ballads that drifted on the wind. The singers had throaty altos and soaring sopranos, women singing of love won and lost. Of snow falling symbolically and literally. Sometimes he still listened to the hard rock of his youth, but most days he preferred violins and melancholy songbirds. 

Robb was closest, his happy suburban life bubbling away in the great frozen reaches. Sandor just stayed in his truck, parked behind a favorite overgrown tree and watched Talisa chase their toddler across the lawn. Robb came home from work and joined the chase, everyone looking grossly happy and pleased with themselves. 

He probably didn’t even need to check in on Robb. They saw him often enough, but it was part of the routine and routines were good. Sandor dutifully texted Catelyn an all clear on her eldest and then set off even further North. 

He was soon in territory where the snow never fully melted. Why anyone choose to live so far into frost, he couldn’t fathom. 

Again, technically, Snow didn’t have to be on his route and he wouldn’t even bother sending Catelyn the all clear, but Arya would somehow know if he didn’t and give him hell about it. So North North North until the world was crystal and white. To the little house by the crumbled remains of a fallen civilization. 

Jon was waiting for him when he pulled up. The man had eyes like a hawk, his land was flat as a board. Sandor didn’t bother to sneak around him anymore. 

“Robb called,” Jon was grinning like the little asshole he secretly was. 

“Did not,” Sandor rolled his eyes. “Man couldn’t spot a tail if someone aimed and pointed.”

“But Talisa can. She said you’re a creep and next time come in for coffee.” 

“She makes fucking terrible coffee.” 

They both considered that for a second as their breath puffed white clouds into the air. 

“Want a whiskey?” 

“Is your giant home?” 

“No,” Jon sighed. “He’s trapping this week.” 

“Then yes.” 

Back in the day, Sandor had gone a few rounds against Tormund. And lost. He preferred not to be reminded of it which Tormund was excessively fond of doing. 

“Sam’s here though with little Sam,” Jon led the way inside. There was a fire going in the living room and you almost wouldn’t know that your balls would freeze to your legs outside. Sam was indeed there, reading his son something out of an enormous book. 

“Don’t you have your own house?” Sandor said instead of hello. 

“Yes,” Sam said cheerfully, “but Gilly is having a girl’s weekend. And Jon was lonely. He just calls and sighs at me on the phone.” 

“I just asked if you wanted to stay with me. I was being NICE,” Jon contended. 

“You’re very nice,” Sam agreed. “Are you getting out the good whiskey?” 

They all had a drink and then little Sam decided lunch was in order. There were worse things than a bowl of mac and cheese and decent liquor. 

“You should probably stay the night,” Jon frowned out the window, a pose so common that it was the contact picture that came up on every Stark kids phone when Jon called. 

“Truck’ll make it and I’ve got a haul ahead of me,” he shook his head. “But thanks.” 

He set out before it got near dark, leaving behind a half pound of cookies from the ones Catelyn had had made for Robb. Robb’s kids got plenty of treats from her all the time. Sometimes, Sandor really relished being passive-aggressive no matter what Dr. Brother said about it. 

The cabin by the Long Lake was swept with pre-dawn light when Sandor reached it. He always came when he was sure Bran and Jojen were sleeping. It was the only way he could get away with cramming a package into their mailbox, using his binoculars to ensure they were both snoring away in their leafy bedroom without being caught out. He preferred not to be led inside with two pairs of eyes trying to dissect him. 

There was a bed and breakfast a few miles away where the owners knew him and were happy enough to give him a late check in when he called ahead. The bed wasn’t big enough for him, but there wasn’t anyone speaking to him with an eerie calm about his future, so he figured it was the better deal. 

The breakfast was pretty fucking good too. Jojen and Bran seemed to subsist on herbal tea, beets, and quinoa which he was happy to skip in favor of thick bacon and pancakes. 

He turned east in the morning, the road following rivers that flowed one into the other. For something different, he switched to the radio and listened to the local news. He didn’t know any of the players, but there was something soothing in the rise and fall of their arguments. It was mid-day when he pulled up outside the peeling paint of Rickon’s place. It was a horrible mess of an old house crammed full of late twenty-somethings with part-time jobs and full-time dreams. Sandor parked and waited, radio off and letting the engine tick. Eventually he saw Rickon, headphones on and dancing down the street in his beaten up Converse and oversized sweatshirt. Fool boy went right by the truck without noticing and then up the house steps, stopping to go through the pile of mail left on the front. By the time he reached his mother’s package and looked up, Sandor was almost halfway down the street. 

“Wait!” Rickon shouted, jogging after him, waving his arms. Sandor sighed and stopped the truck, unsurprised when Rickon opened the door and threw himself inside, scattering more candy bar wrappers than Sandor would like to admit to. “Are you going to stop in King’s Landing?” 

“Yes,” there was no point in lying about it. He usually stayed over there after checking in on Rickon, to fit in some off-the-books checking up. 

“Awesome, can I hitch a ride? I promised Tommen I’d come down this weekend and I totally blanked on buying train tickets.” 

“Fine,” he agreed with a gusty sigh. “Be back here in twenty or I leave without you.” 

“You’re the best, Sandy!” the smile was wide and welcoming before he darted off. Sandor indulged in a second sigh. People used to be scared of him. That had been nice. 

Nineteen minutes later, Rickon emerged with a backpack that bulged at the zipper and scrambled into the passenger seat. He’d let his hair grow long again, shoving it up in a bun. You’d never know he was part of one of the wealthiest families within a thousand miles. He didn’t drive, worked as a substitute teacher, and seemed content to live like a college student forever. 

“How have you been?” Rickon asked, once Sandor had insisted he buckle his seatbelt and started off again. 

“Fine,” he kept his eyes on the road. “You?” 

And to his relief, Rickon launched into a monologue about a convoluted dating situation. He only needed Sandor to grunt acknowledgement in the right places which was his best conversation tactic anyway. Eventually Rickon nodded off, head resting against the window. 

Just before the exit on the interstate, he caught a glimpse of Casterly Rock. The great house looked as imposing as ever despite the years of abandonment. The city had eventually purchased it from the Lannister brothers, but they never did anything with it. Sandor had lived there for years, in the servant’s quarters in a room that looked over the sheer cliff face down into the turbulent sea. For years, he’d slept there and dealt with the Lannister rage that burned in cold fury in every room and thought little of it. 

He grimaced now to see it, the reminder of what had been sour in his stomach. He was grateful to pull off downtown, follow the streets into the suburbs by the water. Tommen’s house looked much the same as always with is with a cheery rainbow flag hanging by the front door and an enormous orange cat in one window. 

“Get up,” Sandor nudged Rickon. 

“Already?” Rickon stretched, and then bounced out of the car. 

Sandor considered leaving. No one would be surprised if he drove off. 

But there were some points on the trip that he made for himself. 

“Rick!” Tommen flung open the door and the two men hugged tightly. “I thought you wouldn’t get here until tonight.” 

“Caught a ride,” Rickon gestured backwards. 

“Hello, Tom.” 

“Sandy!” Tommen was always taller than Sandor remembered. Taller than all the Stark men. But he was also slender and tended to stoop and give off a general impression of smallness. “Can you stay for dinner?” 

“If I have to,” he muttered. 

“Great!” 

They shuffled inside, Rick and Tom talking at each other a mile a minute and in each other’s personal space. Sandor walked around them into the kitchen. Theon was there, washing dishes. He looked better these days, some of the hollowness gone from around his eyes. He had on a Captain America t-shirt that was probably Tommen’s. 

“How goes, Greyjoy?” He asked softly. 

“It goes, Clegane,” Theon replied, watching the water drain out. “You’re staying for dinner?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good. I’ll make extra.” 

Sandor liked Tommen. He’d always been sweet, his puff of wild blond curls making him seem eternally a child, but he didn’t lack for his family’s shrewdness when he needed it. Sandor would never forget looking at the crime scene photos, the ruin of Ramsay Bolton’s face. He’d had no worries after that when Theon had moved himself back in here with no intent to ever leave again. 

Not that Sandor had any say in anyone’s comings and goings, least of all Theon's. 

But the day Sansa had walked into the Bolton house to retrieve her lost friend, it had been Sandor that was on her heels. It had been Sandor that picked up the man’s wasted body and carried it when he could no longer walk to the car. Sansa had made the calls, but Sandor had executed them. 

It had been Sandor that had driven two hundred miles to pick Yara up from the nearest port she could find and withstood the grilling all the way back as if he had any answers. 

It had been Sandor, in the end, that ferried the hollow wreck of a man from place to place, watching the surgeries work on teeth and bone to try and rebuild what had been broken. Yara loved her brother, but she had work to do. The Starks circled him warily as if he might lash out again and take from them what was dear, but unable to altogether abandon the man that once been theirs to some extent. 

So it was Sandor who stood there while he gave shaky statements that brought down what was left of the Bolton House and waited outside the bathroom so no one would go in while he was losing his lunch after. It was Sandor that kept tabs on him when Yara left him at Winterfell to be minded like a child. Sandor who walked with him under the weak summer sun while he tried to regain his strength. 

Theon never thanked him. But he trusted him, held his arm when he was unsteady, told him secrets that Sandor locked in a box in his mind. And for someone like Theon trust was almost like gratitude. 

He didn’t think Theon was a particularly good man. But neither was Sandor and he’d gotten his own abundance of second chances. He had no say in where Theon went or what he did with his life, but if he had any then he’d approve of this. Of the way Theon sat quietly so Rickon could ignore him while he caught up with Tommen. The way he touched Tommen’s wrist gently to get his attention when he needed it. 

The way the two of them leaned up against each other at every opportunity even when they seemed to be paying the other no mind at all. 

Somehow, against his will, Sandor had come to care for people even when he wasn’t being paid to. It was annoying as fuck. 

“Are you going to go find Arya tomorrow?” Tommen set down a bag of cookies along with a steaming teapot. 

“Got something to do here first,” he admitted and then because he realized he was sitting with three people who might actually know. “How do you look up something in the Hall of Records?” 

“Oh!” Tommen blinked. “I’ve never actually been, but I don’t think it’s hard or anything. There’s a staff, right?” 

“Mom usually goes if we need anything,” Rickon shrugged. “But yeah, there’s archivists and stuff.” 

“I can show you,” Theon said quietly. “I had to look up inheritance lines when my mother got sick.” 

“Sure?” Tommen glanced at him. “I can go with.” 

“We’ll be fine,” Theon shook his head. ‘“It’s just a dusty building.” 

Rickon grumbled, but took the couch that night. Sandor slept in the guest bedroom with it’s porthole window. He could hear Tommen and Theon talking in the dark, the rise and fall of their voices following him to sleep. 

“Turn left here,” Theon guided the next morning. He was wearing several layers despite the relative warmth of the day. Sandor was certain this time that the sweatshirt was Tommen’s as it wasn't quite long enough and had some kind of animated pony dancing down one sleeve. “There’s a parking garage on the corner.” 

The Hall of Records wasn’t the sweeping majestic building Sandor had pictured. Instead it was just another storefront with yellowing signs in the window. When they stepped in there was the promised smell of dust and age. A woman sat behind the front desk, looking at her phone. 

“Hi,” Theon stepped in front of Sandor. He had his shoulders set. “We’re here to make an information retrieval request.” 

“Oh,” she set down her phone, looked him over. “Greyjoy? We have your stuff pretty close to the front, just fill out-” 

“No, it’s for him,” he hooked a thumb back at Sandor. “But..how’d you know?” 

“I’ve got most of the faces memorized,” she looked over Theon’s shoulder. “Clegane then.” 

“All of the faces?” Theon blinked. “There's hundreds of old families.” 

“Less with living relations,” she shrugged and held the form up to Sandor. He took it reluctantly. "Fill that out and I’ll bring the records to one of the private rooms, you can look through it for what you want.” 

Sandor glanced over the document, his heart sinking, “I can’t answer a lot of these.” 

“Just do your best,” she waved them into two chairs by the window. "I know where to look."

“What house do you derive from?” Sandor scoffed. He’d gotten only about halfway down before hitting the unanswerable questions. 

“Lannister,” Theon tucked one leg under his chin, “the Clegane title came from them.” 

“Shit, right,” he filled that out. “How’d you know that?” 

“Stark tutors were serious about learning old houses,” Theon shrugged. 

Between the two of them they got most of it filled out. Sandor had to leave some blanks about his matrilineal line. He wasn’t even sure of his maternal grandmother’s first name, let alone her house or her mother’s name. 

The woman at the desk looked over the form and did some rapid typing. 

“You’re cleared,” she nodded. “Come on, I’ll take you back.” 

She showed them to a small room that reminded Sandor of a doctor’s waiting room without the magazines. There was a fake plant in one corner and the lights buzzed their fluorescent song. 

“What are you looking for?” Theon finally asked as she retreated. “Didn’t think you gave a shit about family politics.” 

“I don’t,” he crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Ooookay,” Theon raised his eyebrows, “sooooo....” 

“So, I want to see if they have a name.” 

The door opened before Theon could ask a follow up question. She had a smallish box that she set down gently on the table. 

“Now,” she brushed her hands, “I’ve updated our records, Mr. Clegane. You’re officially the head of your house now, given your brother’s lifetime imprisonment. Should you choose to have or designate heirs, please let us know. Otherwise, upon your death, your family will be archived.” 

She said it all pleasantly enough and then walked out. Sandor stared down at the box, “That sounded like a threat.” 

“I think it just means they stick your box in the back with the rest of the lost families,” Theon muttered. “That’ll be me and Yara someday. The Greyjoys are dying out too.” 

“It’s all of us one day, kid,” Sandor snorted. “Everyone dies.” 

He opened the box. There was a single thin book inside, bound in a thick plastic that felt tacky to the touch. It did have the family crest emblazoned on the front, the colors just starting to fade. Inside were yellowing pages, the first in spindly handwriting while the rest had been done with a typewriter. 

“Land title,” Theon tapped the handwritten page. “You still own the Clegane land, I guess.” 

“I rent it out,” he flipped the page over. “Some organic hippie farm.” 

He’d chosen it because he knew it would make his brother furious. The first typed paged was just a more formalized agreement between Lannisters and Cleganes. He stared at it for a second, amazed that this one piece of paper had so bound his fate. But it wasn’t worth thinking about. The next page was his grandparents’ marriage contract. Then his own father’s birth certificate. His parent’s wedding contract. Both of his grandparents’ death certificates. 

Gregor’s birth certificate. 

His own. 

He turned the page carefully, slowly, preparing himself for nothing at all. 

But she was right there. In black and white. Alena Gregor, born three years after him. She was real. She’d weighed seven pounds, 2 ounces at birth and her eyes had been blue. He let out a shaky breath, pressing his finger hard to the name. His memories hadn’t betrayed him. There was no delusion of a young and angry child. She had been real. 

He turned the page. His mother’s death certificate. 

Another and he vaguely heard Theon make a soft wounded noise. It was Elena’s death certificate. They had recorded it. She wasn’t just tossed away and forgotten about. The cause of death was listed as accidental fall, but there was little to be done to prove otherwise now. She had only been four. 

Sandor knew what four was. Four was Myrcella in big princess gowns running through the mud laughing. Four was Tommen, wrapped around a fat stuffed animal, his eyes wide as he watched his siblings fight. 

Four was Eddie, just two years ago. Eddie who had her mother’s delicate features and sharp wit and soft little voice. Eddie who hung off of him whenever he was nearby and insisted on seeing him whenever she video chatted with her grandmother. 

Four was so small, so young. 

She was apparently buried in the family graveyard, but he could recall no marker there. 

“Do you remember her?” Theon asked. He was standing close, but apart. Giving him space and company. 

“A little,” he closed the book carefully, pressing it closed. “She had brown hair. She made up songs.” 

“Alena. It’s a pretty name,” Theon offered. 

“Yes,” he set the book back into its box. “It is.” 

Theon didn’t ask him anything else and Sandor didn’t offer. They gave the box back to the woman at the front desk and walked outside. He was surprised to find it was still morning. Almost no time at all had passed. They drove back to Tommen’s house and Theon suggested they walk down the beach. It was a clear day, bright and warm. It was the kind of day you didn’t get up in Winterfell often. 

“Tommen does this sometimes in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep,” Theon said eventually, looking out over the glimmering water, “Just goes for these long walks.” 

“One way to clear the head,” he conceded. "Must remind you of home."

“The waves sound wrong to me,” Theon snorted. “Like their muffled. It’ll never be the Iron Islands.” 

“Do you want to go back?” 

“Never,” Theon said fiercely. “Home isn’t just waves. It’s him. Wherever he goes that’s where I’m home.” 

“You tell him that?” 

“He knows, ” he smiled, “I’m going to ask him to marry me this summer. He’ll probably want a big ridiculous wedding. You’ll come.” 

It wasn’t a question, but Sandor said yes anyway. 

He got back on the road before Tommen came home. He had other places to be. 

These days, he did his research before he went looking for her. He’d track unusual events, sometimes deaths, and find the little ripples that she left behind. He knew she put out false information to confuse him and anyone else that might be looking. Yet, often when he arrived, she would be waiting with a sour look on her face though she could easily evade him. 

He took his time, stopping in the night markets to fill out Catelyn’s list and pick up a few things for himself. Then he wound his way up through the trees to a village so small, it’s name wasn’t recorded on most maps. He parked his truck on the outskirts and walked through the darkness to the house she had claimed. It was meant to be abandoned, but that could mean a lot of different things. 

She was standing in the backyard as he got closer. So still that most would never see her, but he’d gotten used to finding the way the darkness bent around her. He stopped just before he was certain she would spot him. He leaned down, grabbed a stick and tossed it at her. She grabbed it out of the air with a huff. 

“Come out then, old man,” she demanded. 

“One day you’ll be my age too,” he gave in with a sigh. “And we’ll see how you like creeping around in the dark.” 

“I’ll retire,” she said unconvincingly. 

None of her men were with her. She was alone in the house, the room she was living out of lit by a lantern. She had a laptop on and a hot plate to make tea. 

“Between jobs?” 

“Between moments in jobs,” she corrected “Awaiting orders.” 

“Your mother sent you gloves,” he handed her the package. He always told her what was in it. Surprises were for other people. “I guess she thinks you’re cold.” 

“I’m warmer than she is,” Arya snorted, but she held the wrapped gift close to her and didn’t release it. “Winter probably already hit up there.” 

“Nearly,” he rubbed his hands together unconsciously, “gonna be a cold one.” 

“Now you sound like a Northerner.” 

They ate the slightly stale cookies in the other package from Catelyn and drank sweet tea. They didn’t talk much, not many words owned between them. From the first time he’d picked her up by the scruff of her sweatshirt and shoved her kicking into his truck, he’d seen his reflection in her grim little face. 

These days that face smiled sometimes and sometimes it even meant it. He tried to smile back when it did. He needed the fucking practice. 

She slept on the couch and slept on the floor, willing for the night to lay at her feet. She needed the unguarded sleep, caught so rarely. 

When he woke up, she was gone. There was a piece of toast on his chest with a note that read, 

_this could’ve been a knife, old man_

He ate the toast and went back out into the morning air. He texted Catelyn, who texted back, 

_was she all right?_

_yes_ he texted back and didn’t add ‘for Arya levels of all right’ though he thought it. 

And then there was only the sweet journey south. His bones warmed as he drove. The window came down and his elbow went out. The world softened as the encroaching winter gave way to near eternal spring. 

He sang along with the tape under his breath as he turned onto the dirt road that stretched through the meadow. Technically, he should’ve been sneaking. Hell, technically this should be the midpoint of his journey. The smart thing to do would’ve been to swing down south and scope Arya and Rickon on the way back so he had built in pit stops on the way up north. 

But Sandor was learning to lie less to himself. He’d always prided himself on blunt honesty, but the longer he was in therapy the more he discovered that it was hard to turn that inward. The truth was that he planned this route because he was happiest here in the flowers and he stored up good memories here to keep him warm through the winter. 

It was mid-afternoon and no one was home yet. He parked and got out. They had been raising a second structure on the property, just across the dirt road from the original cottage. It wasn’t very large, just a rectangle of a place with a nice roof and big windows. Sansa’s business was doing well and apparently it had been prudent to create an official office for it, so she could do things like hire an administrative assistant and not store all her paperwork in precariously stacked boxes. 

He walked around the place, pleased to see it had come together well. It was a dove grey, very official and serene. It was taller than he expected and there were windows in the attic which was odd. He wasn’t even sure why an office needed an attic. 

By the time another car came up the drive, Sandor had settled on the front porch in one of the chairs, just looking out over the grass. It felt good to just stretch his legs and watch the birds go about their business. There wasn’t much to see in Winterfell this time of year. The land was already inhaling the single frozen breath it held until the spring thawed it free. 

It was Rowan’s car, the practical sedan which parked behind the truck. Before Rowan could get out, Eddie had unbuckled herself, thrown herself out of her car seat, face pressed to the window. 

Rowan waved to Sandor then went around to open the door, faking a painful slowness so Eddie got increasingly dramatic, pressing herself to the glass. 

Sandor chuckled and got up. He was barely down the porch steps when she barreled into his legs and full force. 

“Sandy! Sandy! I made a rainbow at school that was super good and Mama told me I could save it for you! Come in and see!” 

“All right,” he rested his hand on her soft hair. 

“Hello, Sandor,” Rowan was carrying her little backpack which had race cars on it and a smudge of paint on one strap. 

“Hello,” he held his hand for a shake which Rowan took with an ironic grin. Then again, Sandor thought Rowan took just about everything with an ironic grin. An unfortunate genetic tic that he shared with his father. 

“Drive was all right?” 

“Fine, Rickon tagged along to King’s Landing.” 

“Does your truck still smell like weed?” 

“A little,” he snorted. “But a few minutes with the windows down got rid of the worst of it.” 

And that was all he had time to say before he was pulled by a small hand into the living room to evaluate several messy paintings and then play dragon in a very involved game of pretend. 

Eddie Grass-Stark had always assumed that Sandor loved her. She was blessed with an abundance of loving adults. There was PopPop and Nana, who indulged her in anything she’d ever wanted to read and invited her up for long weekends in their apartment to make pretty pictures and watch movies. There was Grandma Cat, who she saw more rarely, but always gave her nice clothes and taught her how to do cross stitch. And then there were her aunts and uncles, a tumult of black haired intensity. Even the two Lannister ‘cousins’, who taught her to play Pokemon and soccer. 

So why shouldn’t the big man with the unusual face be folded right in with them. She didn’t ask about his scars, but nor had she ever seemed discomforted by them. As long as he was willing to roar and chase her squealing through the house to pick her up and tickle her, then he was her Sandy and that was that. 

It was the simplest relationship in his life. 

“Sandor!” Sansa called from the door an hour or so later, when Eddie had settled into coloring Sandor’s fingernails with marker with careful intensity. “I thought you’d be another day.” 

“Jon always thinks I’ll take longer than I do,” he rolled his eyes. “Just because he drives like an old woman.” 

“You haven’t seen my mother behind the wheel than,” Rowan quipped from the kitchen table. “Hi, honey.” 

“Hi,” Sansa kissed her husband, then came to sit down next to Sandor. Her hair was piled up in a messy bun. She was wearing some oversized shirt over leggings. Happiness radiated off of her. 

“Mommy, look,” Eddie held up Sandor’s hand. “He’s beautiful.”

“Very nice,” Sansa laughed. She did that a lot now. It was good to hear. 

When he’d first seen her, barely fifteen and wide-eyed at the big city, he’d thought she was lucky to be pretty because she was clearly not very bright. He’d lingered in the background of her dates with Joffery, watched as she ate up his limited supply of charisma. How quickly it had all soured and her face became a hard mask of patience and acceptance. 

Sandor knew everyone across all the families assumed he’d wanted to fuck her. It was an easy assumption with the way he’d become her loyal shadow after her return to Winterfell. Maybe Sansa herself had thought so too from time to time. 

He’d never bothered defending himself from their silent ideas. Let them think that he was lust drunk, blinded by her beauty or whatever other nonsense made him seem more toothless. Let them underestimate him. 

Sandor had been nearly forty when she’d first taken Joffery’s arm. He’d spent most of those years essentially alone, assuming that he would remain alone, an unassailable tower. It seemed like a smart choice. Even if he could find the woman to overlook his flawed appearance, his horrible manners, and harsh words, he would never dare let her get close while his brother lurked so nearby. He knew the pleasure Gregor would take in hurting someone he loved. 

So solitude was his choice if not his nature. He didn’t dare even make friends with other men, though he rarely found any he’d make an attempt with anyway. 

Until Joffery started hurting her. Until Sansa had withstood it like a reed in a hurricane, bending to his blows, but never breaking. Her pretty little voice going silent to stay better hidden in the storm. She was stronger than Joffery. Stronger than Sandor. His reed. His little bird. 

He tried to protect her, in his weak useless ways. Shielded her body with his coat. Carried her when she could no longer walk back to her rooms. Once, he even stood outside her door two entire days and nights when he knew Joffery was in a particular mood, insisting that she had the flu. And when he finally had the good sense to leave, he offered to take her with him. But by then she was too afraid and he never had given her enough reason to trust him. 

To think that a man like him had changed his ways after all those years simply because he wanted to get his dick wet showed a remarkable lack of imagination. 

Maybe he wasn’t old enough to be her father, but it was by such a slight margin that it was stupid to overlook it. Had the world been kinder, he might’ve had a child by then. Probably wouldn’t look or act like his little bird, but a child nonetheless. No one had ever asked Sandor if he’d like to be a father. 

(Until Dr. Brother. Sandor didn’t like to think about that session.) 

Instead, the universe had seen fit to fuck him over at every turn until he ran across Arya running wild with a gang in the middle of the woods and stole her back for her sister. 

Until Sansa had taught him what bravery meant and with shaking hands, he’d picked up the phone and left a long anonymous tip with KLPD about a murder his brother had gleefully confessed to him years ago. 

He’d spent many long years alone and without anyone in his life that he’d trust with his heart. Then he’d handed it over to her without a thought and never asked for it back. And no one knew it. Not even her. Though maybe she'd find out one day, far in the future, when maybe the very archivist he'd called that morning about it would bring her the deed to the Clegane house and tell her it was hers along with the name to do as she wanted with. 

“Sandy,” Eddie tugged at his fingers, “can I do your toes?” 

“If I take my shoes off, you’ll fall right on your a- butt,” he amended. “They stink.” 

“Stinky socks!” Eddie giggled. 

“Very,” he agreed solemnly. 

“Maybe if we ask nicely, Sandor will stay the night and you can do his toenails after he showers,” Sansa leaned in to faux whisper to her daughter. 

“Oh, please Sandy!” Eddie made her eyes go wide. Damn Tyrion to a thousand hells for passing down wide pleading eyes and teaching her how to use them. “Please stay.” 

“What’s in it for me?” he asked, pretending to think it over. 

“Daddy’s making bread!” She bounced. “And I have a new board game and we can play that and you can be the horse, it's the best piece.” 

“Hm...” he leaned in and very gently bopped her nose. “Good deal.” 

He hadn’t even wanted to touch Eddie at all when she was born. Hadn’t wanted anything to do with something so fragile and new. But Sansa had coaxed him and once he’d learned the way of it, it felt ridiculous to be afraid. Whenever he came by to check in, he’d take her outside, walking with her in one arm and beating down the footpaths through the grass so Sansa and Rowen could sleep. As she got older, she started toddling then walking beside him though she still frequently asked to be swung up into his arms and put on his shoulders. 

It was no hardship at all to sit at their dinner table and listen to her prattle on about her day and all her imaginary plans. Eventually Rowan led her off to put her to bed, but not until she got a goodnight hug from Sandor, her arms wrapped around his neck. 

“Walk with me,” Sansa requested when they’d done the dishes and the noise from the bedroom had quieted. 

He followed her. He was good at following Sansa. Though more and more these days, she’d wait impatiently until he no longer trailed behind, but stood beside her. 

“How’s Arya?” She asked. 

“All right...in an Arya way.” 

“She texted over the weekend, then went radio silent,” she shook her head. “I worry that one day she’ll get killed and we won’t know for weeks.” 

“If someone manages to get her, you’d know about,” he said firmly. “I keep track.” 

“I know,” she slid her hand around his forearm, “but you’re not all-seeing.” 

“She’s faster and smarter than anyone else,” he tried to assure her. 

“We all think that until someone proves we aren’t,” she pushed a strand of hair back out of her face. “What about Rickon? Is he still seeing that fortuen teller?” 

He caught her up on her siblings as she led him across the dirt path and up into the new building. She opened the door and a prevailing smell of paint filtered out into the night air. 

“We’re nearly done,” she gestured into the front room, stepping in. “What do you think?” 

“S’nice,” he said looking around. There’s not a lot to it right now, baby blue walls and light wood flooring. There’s a room to the left that doesn’t have a door hung yet. It looked like it’d be her office, with some of her boxes already piled in and some filing cabinets waiting to be sorted into. The main room might house some staff. There was a short hallway beyond and she showed him the small bathroom, the little staff room that would have a mini-fridge and a microwave. 

The stairs at the back. So not an attic, but an entire second floor. She climbed the stairs in front of him, taking them confidently, flicking the light switch on. She did everything like that now, like she knew nothing could stop her anymore. 

There was a door at the top of the steps that had already been hung. She opened it with a grin and he stepped inside, waiting for some kind of joke. 

But it wasn’t a joke. 

It was a tidy little apartment, and unlike the offices, it was already furnished. Instead of the baby blue, the walls were painted a deep stormy grey and the floors were varnished darker too. The furniture was large, a big maroon leather couch with bronze detailing, a chair to match it that could probably fit two regular sized people. A kitchen at the far side of the room with a handsome wooden table, four chairs tucked around it. Through an open door he could see a bedroom with an enormous bed squeezed in under the window he’d seen from the outside. 

“What’s this about?” he frowned. He didn’t know much about interior design, but this was not her taste. “Guest room?” 

“Sort of,” she rested a hand on the back of the couch. “It’s more of a job offer. For you.” 

“Got a job,” he mumbled, thrown. Though the nature of his job had become more and more amorphous over the years. Keep tabs on the kids, do background checks on other Stark employees, babysit wayward Greyjoys, read Catelyn her email when her eyes got tired, walk the perimeter when he didn’t trust the head of security to do it, sometimes just walk the fucking dog if that was all there was to do. 

“I know and you’re really good at it,” she said patiently, “but I was hoping you’d hear me out anyway.” 

“I’m listening,” he crossed his arms, leaned in the doorway, unsure if stepping further in would commit him somehow. 

“With Rowan running his own practice and my business doing so well, we have less free time,” she ran her hand over the leather, “I want to know that someone is there to get Eddie off the bus. Make her a snack. Maybe start her homework with her. Some mornings even get her on the bus. Run her to after school classes.” 

“So hire a babysitter,” he rolled his eyes. 

“Do you think I’d ever trust a stranger with her?” she pinned him with a look that threatened fire and brimstone. “Should I hire some nanny from a service?” 

“No,” he said fiercely, startled by his own anger. “Fuck no.” 

“Fuck no,” she repeated and the curse sounded unsettling from her mouth. 

“I need to be there for your mother,” he shook his head. “I can’t just leave her alone up there.” 

“I know,” she softened. “I know that you’re friends.” 

Were they? Sandor hadn’t thought about her that way. She was his employer. She paid him to care. But maybe these days he would care anyway. 

“It’s a big empty place.” 

“Robb is going to move back. We’ve all been talking about it and it’s time he took more of the weight of the estate management off of her. Talisa won’t like it, probably. They might keep the house so they have somewhere to escape to once and awhile, but they’ll be in Winterfell most of the time. She won’t be alone.” 

“She’ll like that,” he thought of Catelyn shuffling through his terse texts, the missives from abroad to keep her feeling connected. 

“I know. And you need to get out of the cold,” Sansa reached out and took one of his hands in hers. Eddie’s marker scribblings were mostly washed away, but the red and orange lingered brightly on his nails. “Every time I see you lately, these are chapped and your knuckles are swollen.” 

“Just a little arthritis,” he admitted. “Old fractures from fighting make it worse, the doc says.” 

And it was damnably cold in Winterfell, easing into every crack of him. 

“It’s not a pity job or whatever else your thinking,” she didn’t let go, staring into his eyes as if she was never the girl who stared only at her feet. “Or whatever other unflattering argument you’re making in your head.” 

And he knew why she thought he might be. Maybe just a few years ago he would’ve been. But he wasn’t the man that clung to any sign of stability anymore. 

He knew what moving here would mean. He'd load up his foolish horse with it's silly name and wet eyes to live in the pastures, just like him. A kind of semi-retirement until Eddie was old enough to not need him trailing behind her. Then he would just be retired, here in the apartment that Sansa had set up for him, near people that cared if he lived or died. 

He wouldn’t die alone, nursing some hideous wound and cursing his brother like he’d imagined for so many years. 

He could die here, in a field of flowers. Maybe even of old age. 

“I’ll do it,” he said with a nod. 

“You will?” She blinked. “I mean, I’m glad, but I thought I’d have to argue with you.” 

“You did a good job with this place,” he pat the couch. “I like it. I won’t bother you stomping around while you work downstairs?” 

“The floors are pretty well insulated and frankly, it'll be nice knowing you're not far...in case,” she shook her head, more fine red strands coming undone and catching the light, “it’s fine. You’ll be fine.” 

He was fine. He went back to Winterfell because he really didn’t feel comfortable leaving Catelyn on her own. She gave him a severe look when he explained what he planned to do, but she didn’t argue. And when the day came that Robb and his family moved in, Sandor carefully finished his packing and moved out. Catelyn shook his hand firmly, holding on longer than necessary. He didn’t dare to hug her, but he thought this was as good as for the two of them. 

“You take care of my girls,” she said, her voice a little choked. 

“With my life,” he promised and picked up his suitcase. He gave Bannana a pat on the nose in the horse trailer, then made the the drive south without stopping at anyone else’s house along the way. 

The first day he picked Eddie up at school, he waited nervously outside, expecting the teachers to give him a hard time. Some of the other waiting parents were giving him the side eye, moving closer together and leaving a wide space around him. 

But when the doors opened and kids piled out, Eddie slipped out of the neat line, 

“Sandy!” She cried and leaped up into his arms. “We learned about volcanoes today, can we make something blow up when we get home?” 

“We’ll see,” he laughed. 

“Mr. Clegane?” An official looking slip of a man asked. 

“That’s me,” Sandor eyed him warily. 

“Eddie’s mother added you to the pick up list,” the man muttered, making a note. “Eddie was very excited this afternoon.” 

“So was I,” Sandor said gravely. 

“Good. That’s good,” the man wandered off, “see you tomorrow.” 

And that was that. They let him walk away with the most precious person in the world without anyone questioning his right to take her. Good fucking thing Sansa had hired him. Who just let someone walk off with kid after one question? 

He helped her buckle her seatbelt in the booster seat and listened to her chatter all the way back to the houses in the meadow. He stayed until dinner, slipping away even after an invitation to eat. 

Instead he went up to his apartment and warmed up his own food. He opened the window and let the smell of the warm evening drift in as he ate. Nothing hurt. When he was done, he hung up the drawing Eddie had given him of a volcano raining fire down on a group of smiling stick figures on his fridge. 

In a few more months, he’d make the trip to the hippie organic farm. He’d walk the family graveyard until he found a likely depression in the grass. He’d pound a grave marker into the ground with just a hammer and old anger and grief. He’d leave the flowers that Sansa and Eddie had picked that morning at it’s base. 

And then he'd go home to his family.


End file.
